Making choices requires a careful and critical eye, which arises out of past experiences, but above all, I think, out of the imperative will not to give in to the temptation of possibilism. Such a will soon becomes a necessity, and those who have it find themselves on a rugged and difficult ridge, a path that almost always leads to solitude.
A day with Catia Gatelli and Frie Leysen, who will discuss the keywords of this topic together and with the audience. Words that have led Frie Leysen throughout her career as a curator, both at artistic sites and within the framework of festivals in Europe, in the Arab world and Asia. Lorenzo Bazzocchi

How to protect an artist’s work without having to compromise?

How to communicate with the audience, which is an essential partner of the artist?

How to take a stand as an “acteur artistique” by avoiding or attenuating the constant pressure that reality exerts on us?

What does it mean “to choose” and how to coexist with our choices?

How to combine the local with the international dimension?

Can the fundamental reasons that lead to choose a specific set of values or sometimes even an entire class of artists be conveyed to the audience?

Frie Leysen

It is not easy to state in advance what has not been done yet, but why should it be easy?
…. It is one of our needs, such as eating, keeping warm, getting dressed, and so on ….
On such needs we constantly make choices that shape our existence.
The field of arts is not an exception: it turns out to be like water and bread, it is our way of seeing and being seen. It relates to reality and to the possible-impossible which we are first able to assume.
It will undoubtedly be a meeting, a dialogue during which which food for thought will be provided and issues will be raised.
I am not sure that experience is something that can be conveyed.
But I am sure of the need to constantly experiment with unexplored ways to relate with spaces, people, things, to create holes through which we can see the light of the most radical forms of art, theatre, life. Catia Gatelli

Frie Leysen, Belgian theatre and art director.
She founded the deSingel arts centre in Antwerp, which she directed from1980 to 1991. Furthermore, she promoted the Kunstenfestivaldesarts festival, which is held in May in Brussels. She directed it until 2006 und made it one of the most important contemporary art events throughout Europe.
After focusing on Meeting Points 5, a festival taking place in several Arab cities in the Middle East, she was curator of Theater der Welt in 2008-2010. In 2012, she was appointed art director of the new section of theatre and performing arts within the Berliner Festspiele. Moreover, she was theatre director of the Wiener Festwochen in 2013 and 2014.
In 2003, she was awarded the Prijs voor Algemene Culturele Verdienste van de Vlaamse Gemeenschap (prize of the Flemish community for cultural merits) and, in 2007, the honorary doctorate from the Université libre de Bruxelles (ULB). In 2014, she won the Erasmus Prize.

Catia Gatelli, actress and director. She lives and works in Berlin.
In 2009, thanks to a long and deep partnership between Andrea Basti and Catia Gatelli, thauma was set up within the Masque Teatro company. It is a place of possible collaboration and exchange of ideas between different artistic identities. That’s why thauma does not want to be called a group or a company, as its founders mainly care about the concepts of non-belonging, lack, distance. We do not have any headquarters. Research at thauma focuses on the concept of identity and its implications. Recent projects and collaborations: 2009. KA-MI - 2010. [Là]…cenere - 2011. Narciso, l’infinito della mancanza di sé - 2011. Hurry Up! intermittence du cœur - 2012. Orfeo, a concert dedicated to Alda Merini - 2013. Primavera - sound project - 2013. I usually live abroad - video by Paolo Pennuti - script and voice by Catia Gatelli - 2014. the Decision - Masque Teatro - CG actress, script - 2013. Immaginationraum - video by Timo Kreitz - with Catia Gatelli - 2014. Mnemosyne - 2016 FILM Macchina della vista e dell’udito - Directed by Vincenzo Schino, CG actress - November 2017 TabulaRASA Project - Berlin.